


define the space between you and me, define us, define forever

by kinaesthetic



Series: define the inbetween [1]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Gender Dysphoria, Nonbinary Character, Other, relationship dysphoria
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-01
Updated: 2017-05-01
Packaged: 2018-10-26 01:01:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,721
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10776186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kinaesthetic/pseuds/kinaesthetic
Summary: Fareeha reflects on the journey it took to feel comfortable with a title that Angela could call them.





	define the space between you and me, define us, define forever

**Author's Note:**

> I had a lot of thoughts about being nonbinary, gender, sexuality, and dating the other day. I hammered this out pretty quickly then spent a few days editing it and humming and hawing. This is pretty hardcore projecting, I'm not pretending it isn't. Keep in mind there's no one way to be nonbinary or genderqueer. These are just my thoughts. It's not perfect and it's (I fuckin wish) not canon, but I needed a way to express these feelings, so I hope you can enjoy it nonetheless!

Fareeha stares at the curve of Angela’s back, tracing prayers into her skin. She sighs in sleep, squirming only a little. When she doesn’t wake, Fareeha continues tracing pleas for safety and understanding, wanting the moments between them to last forever. Angela, so sure of herself, so certain. It’s easy to call her girlfriend, lover, partner. Angela loses certainty when she looks at Fareeha sometimes, struggling to define them without caging them. It’s no use; Fareeha always paces like a tiger in every box they try to fit in. Girl, boy, demigirl, demiboy, person, existing, were they even extant now? Fareeha feels like the night is unreal as the darkness closes in on them, safe and warm under Angela’s sheets, curled into the space between one another. They’re struck by the thought that they and Angela are the only ones that exist. To each other, even if they were the only two people in the world, perhaps Angela would not have a name for Fareeha. The absence expands with every beat of their heart but never shrinks as it contracts, empty, a vacuum to be filled.

\-  -  -

Before Angela, Fareeha was content being undefined, even took comfort in the nebulous existence that they had. Not quite a girl, not conventionally. Binding when they could, if they needed to, sometimes reveling in dresses, sometimes revolted by the very thought of a bra, happy with flat and curves in equal measure. They had never broken a mirror but sometimes they covered them. Sometimes they refused to look down because sometimes if they did the femininity sloughed off like gloves of death skin and with that, Fareeha’s will to do anything, besides scratch every shred of skin that had ever touched a dress, wilts. Those days, they’d rather drown in sweatshirts and baggy jeans and piles of blankets and old movies.

Fareeha dons sharp suits and vests and beanies and henleys with ease as if they have worn nothing else. They take 4 sizes of 3 different types of men's shorts and pants and jeans into the women's dressing room and breathe easier when one size fits over their hips and hides their wideness. They duck past barber posters of masculine haircuts, fingering their hair, falling an inch below their ears. They like it there, even if it makes them look like a girl. They try the vintage manbun on in the mirror and feel like a ballerina; it's too low and they take it down, sighing. Sometimes their ponytail is just short enough to deny immediate "girl".

Fareeha tries to erase the signs, tries to figure why they exude "girl" when they only want to present as "somewhere in the middle".

They have never quite succeeded past a squint and a pause before "Ma'am, miss, young lady". 

Some days they hide under their bed until the sun sets. They don't have to see themselves in the dark.

\-  -  -

Fareeha has Angela now. Angela yells at them when they double bind, hugs them tightly after they take off the ace bandages over the sports bra, washes their binders by hand, walks them through the idea of top surgery every time they ask. Angela doesn’t question pronouns or nicknames, doesn’t misgender, doesn’t fuss. Angela gives her everything to Fareeha, who is honored but ashamed to be unable to return the favor. They want to give Angela a word for them but so far, nothing's worked.

Fareeha remembers the quiet benefit dinner, a half-year or so after the recall, three months after they began dating. They had not discussed titles, had not discussed the fact that there was no easy way for the hand in Angela’s to have an easy, gentle rolling word like girlfriend, because Fareeha was not, is not, never has been, a girl or a lady or a woman. Fareeha snorted when Angela easily introduced them as her partner. It startled both of them and their company, a lovely couple from the Netherlands. Fareeha coughed and shook hands and smiled until they slipped away and Angela pulled them aside.

In the night air, Fareeha took a breath, breathing deep under their binder and under their suit, straightening up until their spine settled.

“Are you alright? I thought- I’m sorry. I thought partners was acceptable. I should have asked.”

“No, you’re fine.” Fareeha looked to the sky; there were no stars, only low clouds and the flimsy promise of a moon in the east. “I thought of Jesse. It just sounds so...cowboyish…”

Angela frowned, looking out over the balcony. “I suppose it does. I hadn’t thought of it like that.”

“You can use it. I don’t mind.” Fareeha grinned gamely at Angela. They went back inside as partners, arm in arm, a little lost from each other.

It took two months before Fareeha could no longer pretend they could stomach it. Angela still didn’t fuss. They kept trying new words, new phrases, new definitions of “Angela and Fareeha”.

Significant other was Fareeha’s least favorite. Even Angela was inclined to agree, even though she was unwilling to put in her own input until they had officially announced exactly how much they hated it. It was clinical and sterile, too long, too unwieldy. It was as if Fareeha was ‘other’; they know in their heart that’s _not_ what it means, but they’ve checked the ‘other’ box _so fucking often_ in the gender category that just the word makes them irritated. Sweetheart made people think Fareeha was a girl. Both lover and paramour felt too open and uncomfortable and soulmate just sounded so cheesy. Fareeha couldn’t think fiance without blushing because they haven’t gotten there. ( _Yet,_ they always think after that thought while hope blooms in their chest.) By the time they’ve gone through half the relationship names they could find, Angela turns to them one night and says:

“You know, we don’t have to perform for anyone. The team knows we’re together; we’ve never had to announce it to them. And outside of that, we don’t have to introduce ourselves the way anyone expects, you know? I can see this is stressing you out, _liebling._ You’ll start graying early, like your mother.”

Fareeha sighs, tugging a hand through their black hair at the thought. They’re at once grateful and frustrated by Angela’s gentle offer of a way out. “But it’s not fair. I want to have a title; I want you to know the name for me, for us. I just want to belong. I want to be _known_.”

“I know you. I belong with you. You’re Fareeha and I love you, every part of you. No matter if we find a name or not, that’s what comes first.”

So they stop trying. Angela stops allowing Fareeha to call her “girlfriend” or anything like that. They instead exist in the space between each other, undefined and content. Angela never complains, never mentions that Fareeha has noticeably relaxed since Angela shucked the label. It was easier for Angela to give it up and she only regrets that she had not done so sooner. They hold hands, cuddle, cook together, do everything they did before with more ease. Angela hovers and jokes and teases, but never about this: Angela and Fareeha, Fareeha and Angela, two brightly burning stars, gravitating to each other until they consume each other, burning into blissful oblivion.

\-  -  -

After over a year of dating, Fareeha finds their place. It doesn’t surprise them that their mother is the one who spurs this, after filling another hole that Fareeha has carried inside themself for so long. Two weeks after Ana returns to the Watchpoint, she catches Angela making dinner in the kitchen while Fareeha sits on the counter scrolling through their tablet. She squeezes Fareeha’s shoulder in greeting, then addresses the young woman at the stove.

“Angela.” The young doctor pauses from where she’s stirring soup to see Ana standing next to Fareeha, a mug of tea in her other hand. Her hand falls to rest on Fareeha’s knee. “I see you and Fareeha are dating now. It’s nice to see you both so happy.”

Angela pauses, does not miss the hesitation in Ana’s voice as she fills the silence with sipped tea. This is the first time any of them have broached the subject. She wonders if Ana has noticed the way she and Fareeha have been struggling to avoid each other, to escape each other’s gravity until they could explain, could confess.

“Yes, well,” she starts, slowly stirring the soup as she thinks. “It’s a miracle I survived without them for so long.” She smiles at the old soldier. Ana’s eyes twinkle as she sets her cup down and reaches out for Angela’s hand. Fareeha watches transfixed as their hands join, resting palm to palm. Ana squeezes lightly.

“They’re lucky to have you. I couldn’t be prouder of you both.”

This is the point at which Fareeha fumbles their tablet. They hadn’t told their mother about their pronouns. They were reasonably sure everyone was waiting for them to do it. But no one had the heart, or the lack of one, to misgender them for this reason. So Ana, sharp as ever, picked up on it. They should have expected this but even so, it takes Ana’s thumb rubbing idly over their knee to ground them.

“You give me far too much credit. Fareeha...they’re my everything.” Too late, Angela realizes what she’s said and turns to look at Fareeha to apologize, but Fareeha just stares at her in awe.

It takes a second for them to start smiling, to remember to breathe, to do anything besides wonder how something so simple had escaped their notice. They slip off the counter; Ana replaces her arm around Fareeha’s shoulder and pulls them both into an embrace.

“You two act exactly as I would have imagined,” says Ana, chuckling. The tightness in Fareeha’s chest has nothing to do with the binder they’re wearing or the squeezing of their mother’s hug. Feeling Angela brush away the tears that have squeezed out from their eyelids only makes them cry even more. They pull both Ana and Angela in closer and thank the stars that they feel whole, for once.

\-  -  -

Dumb benefit dinners become a bit easier after that.

“This is Fareeha, they’re my everything."

“This is Angela, she’s my home.”

**Author's Note:**

> when you unironically have to check the other box to describe this fic properly. :/ (symmetra voice: "welcome to my reality")  
> I'm gonna write more of these when I'm not writing Sent from Vahalla!


End file.
